Was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to set games of different resolutions to fit onto a tv set for one set of resolutions (in my case 224p). 232p have very minor overscan and are not much of a problem, but 240p has quite a more significant amount to the point where a lot of games are missing information on the top or bottom (stuff like scores, credits etc). I'm in a setup where I run other consoles and the geometry is set to accommodate those as well so changing is not practical.

I don't run games in 240p all that often so I wouldn't mind loosing some accuracy to get the full image in.

I know I can move the H size and V size sliders within Mame but when running 240p (as well as 232p) it messes up the image by giving texts and textures a crushed look with information missing (making texts harder to read too).

For some odd reason I have no problems with the Mame adjustments for games with resolutions above 240. Any game 256p and up when running in 480i I am able to adjust to fit with no side effects. I was able to get 240p games to run in 480i but adjusting is still impossible as it still messes up the image (why would this happen on 240 but not 256 and up when both run in 480i?).

I saw Cools mention this in another thread:"With some trickery you can do this. Force the game resolution, then play about with the vertical size (increasing it until the pixels are clear) and position sliders in game. You probably want filtering disabled too (I forget whether it's definitely unwanted or doesn't matter)"

I'm very interested in trying this but I don't know where to find a filtering to disable (can't seem to find any setting for this anywhere).

If with 256-into-480 you don't get missing lines when using the sliders but you do with 240-into-480 it's most likely due to having fractional scaling and filtering with the former but not with the latter, since it just doubles the lines. Try creating another interlaced mode of say, 484 lines and force it into the game. This is just a guess since what you're doing is nuts. You make all the effort of building and configuring a dedicated setup for GM to then use it with non-native interlaced resolutions. Whereas it's understandable (but not really) if you have to resort to that for extreme cases such as Mortal Kombat's, it makes no sense to prefer that to having to touch the vertical amplitude in your monitor every time you run a 240-lines game, especially if those are rare occasions as you mention.

If you reeeeally need to leave the vertical amplitude untouched, do what most people here do (and I'm sure you've already been told) -- accomodate the picture for 240 lines and just live with the underscan you'll get for sub-240 lines.

Ok, I wasn't aware that the only recourse would require downgrading the graphics to interlaced video. I appreciate that you took the time to explain all that and I apologize for my ignorance.

I assumed there would be a hidden trick of sorts to achieve this but it does sound like I'll just have to build a list (or tag) filled with the over 224 res games and just change the tv h and v size for playing those optimally.

It's not surprising, there's so little documentation and so much to learn and at least to me, things don't make sense at first.

I'm using arcade 15khz preset now with a limitation put of 59.75-60.10 on the frequency range, but somehow I still am not getting 256 content to work (switches to 480i).

Even Denjin Makai which runs at 256p and 61hz won't work (even if I expand to range to 61hz). Am I still doing something wrong?

If you used the range in the mame.ini that I think you did you indicated to GroovyMame that your TV canít fit larger than 480 lines (interlaced) and similarity 240p (progressive). Therefore as you ďcanítĒ display more than 240p it has to ďfitĒ into 480 interlaced. To fit 256 lines you would have to go back to the mame.ini and indicate that wider range, but as we know from your other thread the issue is that those games with more vertical lines cause issues because they all run at the lower frequencies which it appears the Sony TVís canít handle.

Each TV has a set number of vertical lines thatís why you canít force a game that has 224 vertical lines to be the same vertical size as a game with 240, without changing the way the beams hit the screen to make it fit. Thatís why old arcade monitors had a vertical potentiometer so that you could adjust a game to fit vertically as they varied from game to game.

Personally I donít find the ďblack barsĒ on the top and bottom of 224 games to be distracting. However I do find losing information at the top and bottom of 240 games to be distracting, so Iíve set my the vertical adjustments for my TV to match 240p content, especially since like you I canít display 256p content natively, instead it switches to 480i like you and fits the vertical size perfectly.

Am I blocking out the ability to use 256p with these settings? I thought the point of using the arcade preset would have been to allow me access to that range.

When I leave default settings 256p works, but as we both know we end up with a very ripply image. However when changing the range to 59.90~60 I loose 256p. I can understand that games in a low range such as MK and Irem games would not be able to switch, but for a game like Denjin Makai which runs at 61hz and 256p I thought it would work, but instead it reverts to 480i even if I leave 61hz max range purposely to see if I can get it in progressive scan. I'm confused as to why this happens.

As a separate question, I would like to separate 240p and 480p if possible. Is such a thing possible even?

I get a really nice noise free signal for progressive video when limiting the other range to 15734-15734 (59.90hz stops the water ripple effect but the other range seems to determine noise levels), however for some inexplicable reason in interlaced modes it's the reverse, I get more noise with that setting and I get less with a more flexible range (such as 15625-16200).

Here's what i tried to do to seperate the settings for 240p and 480i. I tried adding a range3 like this:

When I leave default settings 256p works, but as we both know we end up with a very ripply image. However when changing the range to 59.90~60 I loose 256p. I can understand that games in a low range such as MK and Irem games would not be able to switch, but for a game like Denjin Makai which runs at 61hz and 256p I thought it would work, but instead it reverts to 480i even if I leave 61hz max range purposely to see if I can get it in progressive scan. I'm confused as to why this happens.

Vertical and horizontal frequency ranges are not independent. This is very important to understand. 256p is mathematically impossible at 16.2 kHz (your max allowed hfreq) if you only allow 59.90-60 Hz. At 16.2 kHz, 256p is only possible at max 58 Hz. You'd need 16.7 kHz in order to reach 256p@60 Hz. If you lower hfreq max to only 15734, then max vfreq for 256p will be even lower 55-56 Hz).

In other words, if you lock vfreq and hfreq you're locking vertical resolution too. To unlock vertical resolution you need to unlock either vfreq or hfreq, or both.

To help you visualize this, VMMaker has a slider panel that you can use to verify dynamically what the capabilities of your monitor definition are, after you edit the ranges in monitor.ini.

I feel stupid for not realizing the issue. Now I've added a fifth range for 256 following your instructions.

I'm able to get 256p at 58hz just as you said but the image is too unstable. I then tested the arcade15 extended but unfortunately at 16700 the monitor goes berserk. The best compromise I could reach was 16400 and 59hz but the picture had too many ripples and the very very top was starting to fold slightly. So I'm resigning myself at 480i for 256 games on my consumer tv's.

I'm so glad I left the ntsc preset and came back to arcade because now thanks to you I understand what I'm doing better I'm able to explore with the ranges more. I think I need to create a 242p because Bloody Wolf runs in 480i instead of 240p despite being a 242p game lol.

Is there cause to avoid having too many crt ranges? Does it slow the launch of games down and should I keep it to a minimum or is there no reason to worry with them?

All of a sudden lots of 640x480 games running in 240p 60hz instead of 480i as they were before, but there are a few oddities:

Blood Roar 1 runs in 240pBloody Roar 2 runs in 480i

Both run on the same system and have a native resolution of 640x480 60hz 31khz, so what's causing the second game to not run in 240p? It seems to run in 240p at startup and up till the character select, but when it enters a fight it switches to 480i.

A few other games also don't seem to want to run in 240p such as Ehrgeiz, Time Crisis, Crystal of Kings, Dead or Alive ++, Tokyo War etc.

Does this mean these games were originally running in interlaced in the arcades? The only sites I know of with info on the original resolutions don't mention the prog/interlaced info unfortunately.

Lastly and I doubt this is possible but just in case, there's no way to force 256p games into 240p is there?

Both run on the same system and have a native resolution of 640x480 60hz 31khz

I think I already told that that's not true. 'Cept for some late Namco particular boards, all the PS-based arcade systems output 15 kHz, no matter the resolution. BR and BR2 don't seem to use the same in-game display resolution, anyway. And dynamic resolution switching was quite usual on this hardware.

The Crystal of Kings should run at 15-kHz progressive (it's 320 x 240), though it seems the hardware supports 640 x 480 and most likely the BIOS screens use it. Maybe MAME's emulation hasn't implemented res. switching there?

Time Crisis and Tokyo Wars were 24-kHz games if I recall, but the rest were indeed hi-res 15-kHz (interlaced).

I'm so glad I left the ntsc preset and came back to arcade because now thanks to you I understand what I'm doing better I'm able to explore with the ranges more. I think I need to create a 242p because Bloody Wolf runs in 480i instead of 240p despite being a 242p game lol.

Is there cause to avoid having too many crt ranges? Does it slow the launch of games down and should I keep it to a minimum or is there no reason to worry with them?

Thatís just using the Arcade 15 preset with the changes in bold. Try that and if 59.5Hz is an issue then edit that up.

Ive never heard of in game switching of resolutions but I suppose anything is possible. If you want to try and capture 242p then thatís currently out of your range because youíve capped your range for progressive lines at 240p (as have I in the above changes to the preset). You can try increasing or decreasing on increments of 8, in other words you could try:

By the way, make these changes AFTER you do a normal install the generated modelines of the Arcade 15 preset. That way you have the full range of modelines available and are simply using the ones that will work with your TV when editing the mame.ini.

Both run on the same system and have a native resolution of 640x480 60hz 31khz

I think I already told that that's not true. 'Cept for some late Namco particular boards, all the PS-based arcade systems output 15 kHz, no matter the resolution. BR and BR2 don't seem to use the same in-game display resolution, anyway. And dynamic resolution switching was quite usual on this hardware.

The Crystal of Kings should run at 15-kHz progressive (it's 320 x 240), though it seems the hardware supports 640 x 480 and most likely the BIOS screens use it. Maybe MAME's emulation hasn't implemented res. switching there?

Time Crisis and Tokyo Wars were 24-kHz games if I recall, but the rest were indeed hi-res 15-kHz (interlaced).

They also list the wrong button numbers for games, like 2 button games often get listed as 3 or 4. This seems to be in Mame itself. Maybe there's a reason I'm not aware of for them to do this but I find it confusing at times when a game I clearly remember in the arcades only using x number of buttons ends up having more listed.

So in other words if I understand correctly aside from The Crystal of Kings, all the other games I mentioned are already running in proper native resolutions. What determines what resolutions are possible with what game, is there a database where one can find out? Also if The Crystal of Kings is not able to switch res to 240p is this an entry in Mame itself or something the developers of Groovymame would implement somewhere down the line (Calamity I guess)?

With a tricky game like Battle Rangers (Bloody Wolf) which runs at 242p, is there no way to just force it to 240p? It's a shame to see it run in 480i because of two lines of pixels over the threshold. lol

Arroyo> Thanks, I wasn't aware it had to be in increments of 8, I will try that later and see if Groovymame launches Battle Rangers in 248p.I ended up with similar settings to you but I limited the horizontal range for 224p and 232p to 59.90~60. I was doing fine with a 59.75~60.15 but then I found in some games like Guardians Denjin Makai II there were edge of pixels that had some vibrations or a pulsating look which I didn't remember previously, and after restricting the range it corrected it. It's insane that such minute changes can have such effects on these tv's, they really weren't build with flexibility in mind.

For interlaced graphics using our tv's when it sits too close to ntsc standard settings it gets these faint scrolling horizontal lines of noise (it's not too obvious so maybe it's not in your way), but it gets corrected with a higher vertical frequency range which is weird but works, so I increased the minimum to something like 15734~16200.

They also list the wrong button numbers for games, like 2 button games often get listed as 3 or 4. This seems to be in Mame itself. Maybe there's a reason I'm not aware of for them to do this but I find it confusing at times when a game I clearly remember in the arcades only using x number of buttons ends up having more listed.

The reason is that these games belong to a "mother" system which has a global input/output spec. Depending on the game, some features will be used while others will not. MAME-centric sites like that of course won't take into account per-game requirements given that even MAME itself is often unclear with stuff like this, when not plain wrong. Usually it's part of the emulation venture itself -- many games have changed the resolution mode years after being added as "working", not to mention the vertical refresh, or even the number of action buttons.

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So in other words if I understand correctly aside from The Crystal of Kings, all the other games I mentioned are already running in proper native resolutions.

The resolution you mentioned is not correct for those, much like the h. frequency. All hi-res arcade games under PS-based systems use 512 x 480. Very, very few used it as progressive scan. Another thing altogether is that it's somehow a bit lame not to display they all at 31 kHz when emulated if there's the possibility. If they were 15-kHz-only back then it's only for budget reasons -- non-dedicated 31-kHz monitors weren't a thing in Japanese centers till late 90's, so there was no point in having your hardware apt to output 31-kHz. But interlace never is --and never was-- a good thing. (Seems not every monitor gives the same result when interlacing, anyhow, and, for upscaled 2-D graphics, interlace helps to alleviate the hideousness, there's that.)

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What determines what resolutions are possible with what game, is there a database where one can find out?

The hardware every game uses, of course, so you need to have a look at hardware/systems lists first and foremost.

I'm not aware of a single website which I'd call comprehensive, but one which includes non-scaled screens from MAME such as Progetto EMMA, is not a bad tool to use as a general approach for the resolution thing, as well as to check the driver every game belongs to under MAME. I don't think you'll find one which also mentions correct h. frequencies given that even MAME itself doesn't bother. I just mention stuff from my own knowledge.

Anyway, you generally can just rely on (Groovy) MAME and let it be, but that's from the perspective of using an all-terrain monitor, unlike your case. If it is, on the other hand, that you don't feel confortable with running in 15-kHz modes pieces which were intended for 31-, you essentially can discard everything but the ZN/PS-based games (check especially Namco, Capcom, Konami), ST-V games and the American (and Nintendo) antiques. There'll always be some oddities such as Konami M-2-based games (?), but little else worth mentioning was born for interlaced video. I'm of the opinion that having a good 31~38-kHz CRT monitor together with your 15-kHz set-up is mandatory, and not just for GM/arcade games.

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Also if The Crystal of Kings is not able to switch res to 240p is this an entry in Mame itself or something the developers of Groovymame would implement somewhere down the line (Calamity I guess)?

You can do it yourself; check G.2 here (and read the whole guide once and for all while you're at it...):

The resolution you mentioned is not correct for those, much like the h. frequency. All hi-res arcade games under PS-based systems use 512 x 480. Very, very few used it as progressive scan. Another thing altogether is that it's somehow a bit lame not to display they all at 31 kHz when emulated if there's the possibility. If they were 15-kHz-only back then it's only for budget reasons -- non-dedicated 31-kHz monitors weren't a thing in Japanese centers till late 90's, so there was no point in having your hardware apt to output 31-kHz. But interlace never is --and never was-- a good thing. (Seems not every monitor gives the same result when interlacing, anyhow, and, for upscaled 2-D graphics, interlace helps to alleviate the hideousness, there's that.)

My bad you're right, the horizontal resolution varies dramatically per system too. The range of resolutions is much larger than I thought possible. You make a good case for owning a 31khz monitor if only for these higher res 3D titles, there's no way around it I guess.

Oh gosh this is a revelation to me. I had actually seen that guide but that entire section went completely over my head at the time (was still trying to get it running at all).

So this means games that run at 480 can be forced into single scan at 240. This means I can get all those 480 vertical resolution games running progressive via 240p as well? If so this is amazing.

So if I understand the instructions correctly, I start by creating C:\GROOVYMAME\ini\source for the individual systems. I create a text file and call it crystal.ini (I'll start with The Crystal of Kings). Inside all I put is the resolution to override with and then the unevenstretch 1 which is ues if I understand correctly:

1. resolution 2560x240

ues 1

nochangeres 1

Is this correct? Is doing it by machine like this the preferred method or should I go by romname instead? If I do go by romname do I just fit into the "source" folder as well?

By the way I actually don't seem to have noreschange although there is a reschange 1 in the mame.ini under Core Switch Options and a switchres 1 option under OSD Full Screen Options. As of Groovymame 205b or even 206 what is the preferred setting for those?

I have one more question, in the guide it says:- Only enable the outputs you actually use. Each extra output that's enabled exponentially increases the time required by certain graphic API calls (e. g. EnumDisplaySettings).

Does that mean I can go to the VMMaker text file and edit the resolutions from arcade preset and just delete all the resolutions I don't use and won't be using on this monitor (I can probably take out a third or more of them).

So this means games that run at 480 can be forced into single scan at 240. This means I can get all those 480 vertical resolution games running progressive via 240p as well? If so this is amazing.

Think a bit about it -- doing that with graphics which aren't line-doubled means you literally take away half the frame. You'll be downsampling the picture in the worst possible way. Those instructions are meant for very specific cases.

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So if I understand the instructions correctly, I start by creating C:\GROOVYMAME\ini\source for the individual systems. I create a text file and call it crystal.ini (I'll start with The Crystal of Kings). Inside all I put is the resolution to override with and then the unevenstretch 1 which is ues if I understand correctly:

1. resolution 2560x240

ues 1

nochangeres 1

Is this correct? Is doing it by machine like this the preferred method or should I go by romname instead?

unevenstretch / ues, both work, if I recall.

If the driver indeed always reports 640 x 480 and every game in it has always a design resolution of 320 x 240 (which I believe to be the case), I'd go with that, yeah, and in the driver's INI file. MAME is not as alien in its logic as it seems to be, really. And then, you can make tests too.

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If I do go by romname do I just fit into the "source" folder as well?

Chapter E in the very same guide:

To force specific MAME and Groovy MAME settings into one only game/machine (or just the games from a particular MAME driver), a machinename.ini file should be placed in MAME's INI folder (or a drivername.ini in ini\source, for the MAME driver case).

Thank you so much. So I'll be careful what games to use this on (not on Time Crisis and Tokyo War for example).

So I tried with unevenstretch instead of ues and it seems to work.

One oddity however is The Crystal of Kings is now running at 320x241 > switchres 2560x240. It have a feeling the difference doesn't matter but I found it curious.

I tried on a few others notably Bloodyroar 2, Dead or Alive ++ and Ehrgeiz and it worked perfectly there. 512x480 > 2560x240 etc

Is Bloodyroar 2 a bad idea to force to 240p? Somehow it now feels weird, but maybe it's because it was interlaced in the arcades (and I wasn't even aware) according to what you told me (never did play Ehrgeiz or DOA++ in arcades so to me they just seem improved now).

I also did this to Battle Rangers 242 >240, with the same file info, seems to work although probably not ideal.

Lastly how can I cut back on the number of resolutions in VMMaker? I tried editing the super resolutions but most of the resolutions I'd want to remove are not there (anything under 58hz). In your guide you did say having less is preferable right?

I have one more question, in the guide it says:- Only enable the outputs you actually use. Each extra output that's enabled exponentially increases the time required by certain graphic API calls (e. g. EnumDisplaySettings).

Does that mean I can go to the VMMaker text file and edit the resolutions from arcade preset and just delete all the resolutions I don't use and won't be using on this monitor (I can probably take out a third or more of them).

By enabling outputs we mean sending video through two separate connectors on the video card (e.g. what you do when you extend the desktop). You may want to do this in some situations, e.g. running a 15 kHz CRT as secondary monitor, while you work on an LCD as primary screen. But if you use a single monitor, just enable one desktop, Windows will be faster. Anyway this was a real issue with pre HD 5000 cards, it's not that important anymore. Of course, reducing the mode list also helps, but in your case I wouldn't bother.

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Lastly how can I cut back on the number of resolutions in VMMaker? I tried editing the super resolutions but most of the resolutions I'd want to remove are not there (anything under 58hz). In your guide you did say having less is preferable right?

VMMaker only creates the modes you ask it for. Be aware of this, and find the list from which it's taking the modes you don't like.

Notice that in user_modes_super.ini, a mode can be listed as 60 Hz, but when it's generated it may end up with a lower vfreq, due to the restrictions of your monitor preset.

I tried on a few others notably Bloodyroar 2, Dead or Alive ++ and Ehrgeiz and it worked perfectly there. 512x480 > 2560x240 etc

Is Bloodyroar 2 a bad idea to force to 240p? Somehow it now feels weird, but maybe it's because it was interlaced in the arcades (and I wasn't even aware) according to what you told me (never did play Ehrgeiz or DOA++ in arcades so to me they just seem improved now).

You're basically going from this:

...to this:

The game is ugly as sin, so maybe thanks to losing so much definition it looks like an improvement in your eyes? 'Cause getting rid of the interlace just can't justify such an atrocity. And wait till you try it with a 2-D game.

Yes I see the point. Since it was running in interlace to begin with on my 15khz tv it wasn't looking like the first pic I can tell you that.

So in your opinion interlaced is better for these games?But The Crystal of Kings being 240p is worth leaving in such resolution correct?

I still can't figure out why The Crystal of Kings insists on launching in 320x241.

I wonder what would happen if I try to force 256p games to run in 240p. I'll try that later for curiosity sake. I'm guessing same as what you just showed me, it downres' the image resulting in a loss of pixels right? However since interlace is not very pretty for 2D games in Groovymame might it be preferable to interlaced 480i?

Wow, the result is stunning. What a difference. I edited MK2 and went back and forth, now the interlaced other MK games look quite poor in comparison.

Arroyo you should definitely test this. MK2 is looking gorgeous in 240p. Another odd thing is, for testing purposes I was playing with the in mame geometrical settings and they have no negative impact on the game unlike the way native 240p games (which get crushed and missing lines).

This might sound like an ugly way to run a game (in non native resolution) to many here but when the alternative is 480i I think it's worth giving this a shot (in my case it's not many games anyway).

Wow, the result is stunning. What a difference. I edited MK2 and went back and forth, now the interlaced other MK games look quite poor in comparison.

Arroyo you should definitely test this. MK2 is looking gorgeous in 240p. Another odd thing is, for testing purposes I was playing with the in mame geometrical settings and they have no negative impact on the game unlike the way native 240p games (which get crushed and missing lines).

This might sound like an ugly way to run a game (in non native resolution) to many here but when the alternative is 480i I think it's worth giving this a shot (in my case it's not many games anyway).

There's something a little off about 480i with 2D arcade games imo.

So you are using unevenstretch to compress the game into 240p? I take it this helps the refresh rate issue?

Arroyo> Here's my ini file for mk2, you can just change the crt range to your own and change the name to whatever 256 game you want to change. I'm creating inis for all my 256p games I have (which aren't all that much actually) I'm not sure I'd do it for 3D games, but 2D games just look like night and day this way. Give it a try.

EDIT: Just to explain why I put in the crt range: without it what was happening was none of the previous ranges were taken into account so I had a horizontally squashed image a bit.

Arroyo> Here's my ini file for mk2, you can just change the crt range to your own and change the name to whatever 256 game you want to change. I'm creating inis for all my 256p games I have (which aren't all that much actually) I'm not sure I'd do it for 3D games, but 2D games just look like night and day this way. Give it a try.

Arroyo> Here's my ini file for mk2, you can just change the crt range to your own and change the name to whatever 256 game you want to change. I'm creating inis for all my 256p games I have (which aren't all that much actually) I'm not sure I'd do it for 3D games, but 2D games just look like night and day this way. Give it a try.

EDIT: Just to explain why I put in the crt range: without it what was happening was none of the previous ranges were taken into account so I had a horizontally squashed image a bit.

My suggestion was to use -unevenstretch 0, so GM would apply cropping. I would never have suggested what you have in that ini without the integer scaling part.

Arroyo> Here's my ini file for mk2, you can just change the crt range to your own and change the name to whatever 256 game you want to change. I'm creating inis for all my 256p games I have (which aren't all that much actually) I'm not sure I'd do it for 3D games, but 2D games just look like night and day this way. Give it a try.

EDIT: Just to explain why I put in the crt range: without it what was happening was none of the previous ranges were taken into account so I had a horizontally squashed image a bit.

My suggestion was to use -unevenstretch 0, so GM would apply cropping. I would never have suggested what you have in that ini without the integer scaling part.

Correct me if Iím wrong Calamity, but the unevenstretch would still maintain the refresh rate? As that seems to be our biggest problem on these TVís (sub 59.xxHz) Iím struggling to see how doing anything other than triple buffering would improve refresh rates, outside of going 480i?

Arroyo> My impression is that the tripple buffering is still applied here, but I could be wrong.

Right now what I'm trying to figure out is how to get the edited mk2.ini with unevenstretch 0 to get proper horizontal porch levels to work, it's as if they reverted to how they were initially which is to say squished.

EDIT: Changing the porches in the range in the mk2.ini to make it wider doesn't seem to make any difference either.

You only need integer scaling applied to the y axis so that the image gets cropped vertically, therefore try adding unevestretchx 1 to enable fractional scaling on the x axis. If it doesn't work, try intscalex 0 instead.

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So in your opinion interlaced is better for these games?

Sure. You're preserving the picture's integrity, and the interlace came with the original hardware anyway. And being a fighting game, I wouldn't scale the graphics so dramatically in order not mess with the hitboxes either.

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But The Crystal of Kings being 240p is worth leaving in such resolution correct?

Sorry for the delay, I went out for the evening and heading back, I'll share my finalized mk2.ini as soon as I get to my computer.

I didn't need to modify my monitor presets but I did need to update the horizontal porches to compensate for the larger picture. I'm not exactly sure why this is but despite running in 240p it's as if they still have a 256p picture so it's much larger than 240p and the settings I had for 240 make the horizontal side squished, I had to expand the porches further to restore a true 4:3 aspect ratio. Everything looks really nice now but when my crt is set for 224 (my default settings) the picture is big time overscanned, and when in 240p (I found good h and v size settings for such content) it's still a bit overscanned. However touching the ingame mame settings to a small degree don't seem to have major impact so I will probably adjust them to 950 or so and the games should work while in a calibrated setting for 240p games. I have to do more testing though because I did notice that when pulling too far the image does degrade noticeably, but from the little testing I did earlier at a small degree there as no apparent negative effect (unlike in 232p and 240p where the picture immediately deteriorates).

My next problem is what to do with Crackdown. That's the last 2D game running in interlaced mode but it has such an awkward resolution I'm unsure what the best method would be to force it to a progressive mode compatible with my 15khz crt. Crackdown appears to be 496x384, was this another game running in interlaced or was it actually progressive? I would have to guess progressive because it looks very poor in interlaced mode imo. I used to love this game on Megadrive/Genesis but never played it in original arcades.

Sorry for the delay, I went out for the evening and heading back, I'll share my finalized mk2.ini as soon as I get to my computer.

I didn't need to modify my monitor presets but I did need to update the horizontal porches to compensate for the larger picture. I'm not exactly sure why this is but despite running in 240p it's as if they still have a 256p picture so it's much larger than 240p and the settings I had for 240 make the horizontal side squished, I had to expand the porches further to restore a true 4:3 aspect ratio. Everything looks really nice now but when my crt is set for 224 (my default settings) the picture is big time overscanned, and when in 240p (I found good h and v size settings for such content) it's still a bit overscanned. However touching the ingame mame settings to a small degree don't seem to have major impact so I will probably adjust them to 950 or so and the games should work while in a calibrated setting for 240p games. I have to do more testing though because I did notice that when pulling too far the image does degrade noticeably, but from the little testing I did earlier at a small degree there as no apparent negative effect (unlike in 232p and 240p where the picture immediately deteriorates).

My next problem is what to do with Crackdown. That's the last 2D game running in interlaced mode but it has such an awkward resolution I'm unsure what the best method would be to force it to a progressive mode compatible with my 15khz crt. Crackdown appears to be 496x384, was this another game running in interlaced or was it actually progressive? I would have to guess progressive because it looks very poor in interlaced mode imo. I used to love this game on Megadrive/Genesis but never played it in original arcades.

Thanks for the details. Iíll wait for your post of the ini and try it in my setup.

As usual be sure to put your own h porch settings, but try to expand the horizontal ones cause if you're set to 240p you're going to have some horizontal squishing since the vertical resolution will be increased (you'll have to play around with arcade osd, but for me adjusting the same difference between 224 to 240 worked (after all the difference is the same between those two and 240 to 256). You'll end up with some noticeable overscan but you can try correcting it through mame although I'm sure some will scoff at this I haven't noticed much difference at moderate levels of using this yet.

I'm not sure I fully understand what we're doing but my understanding is that by using unevenstretch on the y axis we're preserving the 256p in size but actually displaying it as 240p since that's the limit we can reach with our frequency range (if I'm wrong please correct me). Because crt's don't actually display pixels but lines the difference is rather hard to notice (I'm sure trained eyes might spot it but compared to interlaced graphics it certainly seems more accurate). Right now the triple buffering is probably the biggest drawback to this setup but there's nothing we can do with that unfortunately (here's hoping we don't notice it much during actual gameplay).

I think for those of us with consumer tv's with limited ranges like us it gives us the best possible compromise yet, and this will certainly work for me until I decide to get an additional monitor with expanded ranges for these higher res games.

Please let me know how it works for you and how you feel about these higher res games running on your tv.

I have some unfortunate news however. It looks like on my tv's (all of them) I cannot underscan sufficiently to get 240p fully visible. The top of the image starts cutting off (even curling away) and leaving a bright long line at the cutoff point at the top. I guess Arroyo you might not have this issue because you're running a larger tube (27 inch iirc), I run only mid size tubes at 20 and 24 inch since that's the optimal sizes for me.

I find that when using the in mame setting to reduce the size of the image to adjust I'm getting some warped looking texts (although it's not dramatic it's distracting). I'm really happy to have 224p and 232p running arcade perfect as combined they make up for almost 70% of my game selection, however for running the remaining 240 and 256 games I now need to find a solution to reduce the size of these games to fit in the same resolution as 224 games. I understand this will mean giving up on accuracy, but what's the best way to achieve this on my tv's? Keeping in mind again I'm not able to move h and v sizes far enough to fit 240 and up resolutions.

Can I create inis for each 240p game, force them to 224p and remove unevenstretch?

I remember when I bought all these tv's they had heavy overscan on consoles, so I already had zoomed out big time to get all other systems in full sight, I didn't realize consumer tubes were that restricted on how they can run 240p and up.